A/N Feeling much better. Thanks for the kind wishes. Thanks too for reviewing. If you are out there still reading but haven't reviewed this or haven't in a while, let me hear from you, please. I like having a sense of who is reading. It is one of the rewards of this site.
I know this story is its own sort of thing. I have an enamored fascination with words, and especially with human character and motives. But action, so-called, as much as I enjoy writing it, only interests me insofar as it stands in meaningful relationship to the characters and their motives. I suppose witnessing two people, say, shooting guns at each other, is exciting, but it lacks any depth unless I have some idea of who is shooting at who and why, some idea of what the shooters stand to gain or lose (beyond the obvious). In the terms of my field, I want action that stands in internal relations to those performing the action, internal relationships that are open to survey. (And now you know why you don't want my job, I'm guessing.)
Don't own Chuck.
CHAPTER 35 Frustration and Excogitation
My own center is the teeming heart of natural families.
Thomas Merton, Cables to the Ace 72
Chuck and Sarah got up and got dressed. They ate cereal together because there was not much else in Castle to eat.
Each knew what the other was thinking about, what the other wanted. Each wanted to go back to the holding cell and do more there than hold the other. But there was not time—and Sarah was determined to wait until they had a chance to talk and she had a chance to prepare for the…event.
So, there they found themselves, antsy and anxious, at the central table in Castle, full of cereal but unsatisfied, and unable to touch each other because neither could keep his or her hands from wandering. If anyone had been listening, they would have heard a soundtrack of soft, stymied sighs.
Promptly at 9 am, Castle time, the monitor glowed to life and General Beckman was ready to debrief them.
She asked about what had happened to Chuck. He started with waking up at the warehouse, but Beckman wanted to know about the abduction.
"Ah, uh, well, I went to the wrong apartment at first. Then I realized I was supposed to go next door. The door was open. A woman's voice told me to get started. I was opening a TV box when I heard my name. I turned around and there was Jill Roberts."
"I assume she had a gun on you?" Beckman asked rhetorically.
"Um, no. She didn't have anything on me or anything on her." Sarah turned blue eyes on him that would have made glaciers look comparatively cuddly. "I mean she had on a towel, but not much of a towel. You know, not a beach towel but not a washcloth. More like a hand towel—but she wasn't using it on her hands. She was covering, " Chuck made sweeping, insistent gestures over his chest and abdomen, "herself with it. She was covered. But she wasn't covering me, you know, with a gun."
Sarah spoke, a dangerous conjunction: "And?"
"And I was shocked to see her and to see her like that and she walked up to me and I froze and she tranquilized me. Really!"
Sarah kept him in the arctic freeze of her gaze for a few seconds more, until Beckman cleared her throat. "And, I take it, you remember nothing more until you awoke at the warehouse."
Chuck was now staring at the floor, so he missed the smirk that crossed Sarah's face as he struggled, discombobulated. Beckman saw it, however, and she and Sarah shared a significant and amused look.
"So then what…Chuck?"
At Beckman's use of his name, Chuck looked back up. Sarah smiled when she heard it.
"They were going to use their Intersect technology—Jill called it an 'ancestor technology' to get, not the Intersect itself, but the NSA and CIA data it works on, out of my head." Chuck paused, weighing how much of Team Piranha's work to expose. He decided to wait to expose it until he talked to Sarah and Ellie about it all. "They never got the process underway successfully, so I never gave them anything."
"Did they try to use it on you?"
"No, they couldn't seem to get the program to do what they wanted." Chuck winced inside—he hated to lie, but he did not know if he could share the truth with Beckman. She seemed a friend, but would she be willing for him to work toward getting rid of the Intersect? And what he said was more misleading than false—even if such a distinction carried a whiff of casuistry.
"What else happened while you were there?"
"Not much, honestly. Jill wanted to…talk about old times. I assume you know she was my girlfriend at Stanford?"
"Yes, I know that. She was involved with Larkin there, correct?"
"Yes."
"And she was involved with him again here, over the past few weeks?"
"Huh?" Chuck looked at Sarah.
"Bryce is back in the clinic, Chuck. Jill programmed him with Fulcrum's Intersect, and it has messed with his head. He's confused. He is also in love with Jill, even though—for maybe the second or even third time, I think—he wishes he wasn't."
Chuck now knew why he had seen a reaction in Jill to his mention of Larkin in their talk. She had just freshly seduced Larkin. Freshly. Chuck frowned, his features grim.
"Will he be ok?"
"He will—if we can get hold of Fulcrum's Intersect. We believe it can be taken out."
"Right. Jill told me that too. They can get theirs out. At least, she clearly believes they can."
"How about Leader, Chuck? Did you interact with Leader?"
Chuck was silent for a minute. "Chuck, Leader?"
"Yes, General, I heard you. I'm just not sure how to answer. I talked to Leader, but not in person, exactly. Leader was a talking head on a TV—a cross between Satan and Max Headroom. If I had seen him again, I thought I might call him Max Hornroom." Chuck laughed and waited. Beckman just looked at him impatiently.
"So, anyhow, I talked with Leader in real time. I assume that the talking head was some kind of projection, keyed to an actual human being's face and head. My impression was that Leader is a few syllables short of a haiku." Chuck made a circling motion with his finger by his temple. "Crazy."
"Oh, and seriously interested in the Intersect—in a Captain-Ahab-Moby-Dick-He-Tasks-Me, He-Heaps-Me kind of way." Chuck got up and mimed walking with a stump. Sarah laughed behind her hand. "Crazy! But scary too."
"Did they mention Orion to you, Chuck?" Beckman looked at him closely. He sat back down.
"Yeah, uh, yes. They don't know who he is, but they believe he created the Intersect in various versions. Some kind of mysterious, super high-tech computer guy."
"Do you have any idea who he might be, Chuck?"
"What, me? Why would I know? I fix computers and play video games, but I am no super computer guy. I'm more like a circuitry handyman."
"Well, I should be in Burbank the day after tomorrow. Do you two know about Graham?"
Both Chuck and Sarah shook their heads. "He attacked and killed his wife, " Beckman began.
"Marge? Oh, no." Sarah had gone white.
Chuck looked disturbed and confused. "Someone was married to…Graham?"
"There's more to tell you about that, and more to tell you about Graham. But I want to tell you that in person."
Pause. Pause. Pause.
"Have we gotten any information on Roberts, yet, General?" Sarah asked.
Beckman held up a piece of paper. "I just got word that Roberts' credit card has gotten two hits, heading westward out of California and into Arizona. There were charges for gas near the border, Desert Center, and another deeper in Arizona. We also have a photograph from a surveillance camera in the Arizona gas station."
Beckman punched a button and a photograph of a woman slim woman in a red hat and sunglasses came onto the monitor. The photograph was grainy and the angle less than perfect, but it certainly looked like Jill.
"What do you think, General? Is that Roberts? Allowing hits on her credit card seems rather amateurish."
"'Yes, it does," Beckman said, "but Jill is a strange combination of professional and amateur. She is clearly highly regarded in Fulcrum. She victimizes Larkin, who is no fool, slickly manages the abduction of Chuck—all that testifies to her being a pro. And then she undoes her work because of a taste for particular pancakes. I admit I can see how she might have thought no one could have known about that, but it is an odd quirk to have indulged at such a time."
"Especially since those pancakes aren't any good," Chuck added, "especially cold. Even Morgan doesn't like them."
Beckman chuckled. Chuck was clearly a bit manic, still processing the last few days.
"I don't know, Sarah. Has Jill run? If I were going to guess, I would guess Jill is on the run. The whole warehouse business was a massive fail. We don't know much about Leader, but we do know that he does not tolerate failure. Fulcrum is not what you would call a second-chance organization. Jill may be running not just from us, but from Leader too. "
Sarah's eyes narrowed but she did not disagree.
"I am canceling the order for the two of you to bunker in Castle. But, Sarah, do not let him out of your sight." Beckman smiled giving that order and Sarah beamed at hearing it. Beckman continued.
"Let me finish up by saying something to both of you. The cover dating is over. I know you are a couple. Casey knows it. Larkin knows it. You may really and truly date, assuming that is what you want to do, no pretense about it.
"I believe Team Bartowski is as good as it is because of what you two have. So, let's have no more pretending. You have my blessing—for what that's worth. And my apologies—for whatever role I have had in making things harder than they needed to be. Take care of each other. I will see you both in person soon. " Beckman ended her transmission.
Chuck turned to Sarah, his whole posture apologetic. "So, Sarah, about Jill and the towel. Sorry. And sorry too for what Jill said. Yes, she was first, but she is not my standard; she was first, but you are the last…if you want to be. You are the one."
Sarah took a minute to let what he had said sink into her heart. She would respond to the implied question, but not now—so she chose to respond to the towel.
Sarah walked to him and put her hand on his chest. "We're good, Chuck. I trust you. And, never, ever forget, the worldwide textile industry, in its long and varied and colorful history, has yet to make a towel in which Jill Roberts would look better than me." She smirked as she watched Chuck parse that long sentence—and finally smile when he had done it.
"I will not forget, Sarah—but maybe…an occasional refresher course would be in order?"
"Just promise to sing for me in the shower, Chuck. And you will see me in a towel and out of a towel."
Chuck found no words adequate for response to that.
Sarah gathered her things to leave Castle. Cheryl and Bob were both fine—their injuries were not serious, cuts and bruises and minor burns—so they would tend to the Orange Orange. Casey had told Big Mike that Chuck had gotten ill after the home install (Jill's fake one) and that he had to stay home for a few days, doctor's orders. She and Chuck had the day to themselves.
But as she waited for Chuck to get his stuff together, Sarah recalled Jill sitting at Chuck's bedside, staring at him. The room had been dark, and Sarah had been wearing night vision goggles, but that scene struck her as revelatory. She had never met Jill but she had heard about her from Chuck, from Morgan, and from Ellie. The portrait they had painted was not of a dangerous woman, but that is what Jill was, dangerous. Not dangerous, though, in quite the same sense as Hilda.
Hilda was a professional—even her desire for revenge on Chuck, although no doubt a desire that involved Hilda's ego, was a professional desire. To command her fees, Hilda needed to be an assassin who was not only feared but who left no loose ends. Sarah understood that—too well. Jill was dangerous. She was talented and smart. But she was serving a need, a hunger. A hunger that trumped her professionalism. Sarah had been with her con-man father long enough to know how hungers, especially deep and dark ones, worked. She knew hunger even in the green glow of night vision goggles. Jill wanted Chuck. No doubt that hunger involved sexual desire, perhaps it even had a romantic cast to it, but it was ultimately about possession. Her father had radar for people like that, and the man had trained Sarah.
Beckman thought Jill had run—that made sense, given the data Beckman had. But Sarah had seen Jill's vulturine vigil: Jill wanted to own Chuck, needed to own him. The woman on that vigil was not going to leave town without Chuck. At the end of the day, Jill was not really a Fulcrum agent, not really loyal to whatever slogans it was that Fulcrum fed its people. Jill was in this for herself—and the thing she wanted most was Chuck. Jill was still in town—Sarah was sure of it. She and Chuck might have the day to themselves—but they were going to need to be careful. Sarah would have to be vigilant.
They took her Porsche and she told Chuck she wanted to get some air after being shut in Castle. She suggested the beach, his spot on the beach. Chuck smiled in agreement.
On the way, Chuck told her the full story about his time in the warehouse, including the details he had left out not only about the Intersect (that he had figured out how to turn it on and off) but also about his conversations with Jill. Those conversations saddened and angered Sarah, mostly for Chuck's sake, but a little for Jill's too.
Sarah knew the complicated trap of the spy life. It seemed a life of rare freedom—no ties, exotic places, and exciting covers to take on. But it was a life that quickly closed around you, the cost of your freedom an ever-increasing rootlessness, insensitivity, and emptiness. After a while, the freedom was artificial because there was so little left of you to be free. She could see how Jill would grasp at Chuck as a way back to the more genuine freedom she had when they were a couple in college. The trouble for Jill was that the nature of her hunger for Chuck would prevent her from allowing Chuck to help her in the ways she dimly realized she needed help.
Sarah could sympathize with that.
What did Chuck say Jill said? That she had a Chuck-shaped hole in her life. What Jill did not understand was that she could not just plug Chuck into that hole, holding the rest of her Fulcrum life in place. The cost of plugging Chuck in would be razing that life and starting over. Sarah had only gotten clear about that herself in the past weeks. Chuck was not a puzzle piece for a spy's life, he was dynamite.
They got to the beach. Sarah surprised Chuck by having preparations for just such a stop in the car. She had a blanket, bottles of water, sunscreen and even a radio. Chuck smiled broadly at it all, and Sarah blushed. "I like it here and I decided to be ready to come here at a moment's notice."
They found a place in the sand to spread their blanket. The beach was not empty, but it was not crowded. There were mostly families with small kids and a few retirees out walking along, just beyond the reaching fingertips of the waves that came in. The day was sunny and cloudy.
Sarah looked around them carefully. She had been keeping an eye out for tails on the way and had seen nothing that worried her. The fact that Jill wanted Chuck simplified things for Sarah since Jill would be angling to abduct him again, not kill him. That eliminated various sorts of worries. She saw nothing around them on the beach that was a cause for concern. So she relaxed—as a spy.
And then she became nervous—as a woman.
Chuck was staring out at the water and toward the horizon. She realized that he had been in cells for the last few days. He needed the open and the blue in the air more than she did.
"Chuck, you remember that when we were here together after that first night, I asked you to trust me?"
He nodded. He turned toward her. "I want to tell you that I trust you, Chuck. Completely. Proving that was one reason I was writing the letters. I am done writing the letters now. I believe you know me. And you have not gone away, run away from me. I can tell you these things in person now. If you, Chuck, can live with who I have been, then I can too; I am already beginning to.
"You warned me to be careful or I would turn into a real girl. I have. I'm not a normal real girl—if you know what I mean—but I am real. If you prick me, I bleed. If you make jokes, I laugh…If Fulcrum takes you, I nearly lose my mind."
She grabbed Chuck in an intense hug. He stroked her hair and kissed her head. "I knew you would come for me, Sarah. I never lost faith in that for a minute. I knew I just had to stay in one piece long enough for you to do it."
"I will always come for you, Chuck. If I don't save you now, I will save you later. Don't forget that." Sarah's face was at once soft and fiercely determined. "I love you, Chuck Bartowski."
"I love you too, Sarah Walker. Sarah, can I tell you something, just so we are clear?"
"Sure." Sarah's tone was slightly wary.
"I want you. I want a family. I want kids. If you…want Molly, Sarah, so do I."
Sarah dropped her head. She still sometimes forgot that Chuck could find his way among her not-fully-acknowledged emotions the way she could among shadowy city streets.
She picked up her head and looked at him.
"I do miss her, Chuck. Even though I know my mom will do—is doing—a great job raising her, I can't help but feel like she is my responsibility, that she is…mine. Does that sound crazy to you? I mean coming from me of all people, the woman without a home, without a family, without a life?"
"No, Sarah. It does not sound crazy to me at all. And you have a home, a family, and a life. You have people around you who know you and who admire and love you. Me, for one, Casey, Ellie, Devon, Morgan—and judging by this morning, I think Beckman belongs on the list. I think she cares about you, Sarah."
"Thanks, Chuck. I just—maybe this will sound crazy—I just know that what I went through in saving her somehow seems to me like giving birth to her. I feel a bond there. I've not been able to shake it. It's just real, it's just there."
Chuck nodded, a hint of a smile on his face. "None of that surprises me, Sarah. If I had known the story earlier, the only thing that would have surprised me would have been your feeling another way. You need to face it: the only person who knows you who ever thought you were heartless was you. Why do you think Ellie never guessed that you were a spy or something like that, given all the data she had? Ellie's a brilliant woman, Sarah. She could have put it together. Except that she knew you, not some cover-you, and you did not seem like a spy. You seemed like a good woman, in love with her brother but troubled by something. Look, my point is that the way you feel about Molly is not out-of-character for you. It might be out-of-cover—but who cares about that?"
So is Agent Walker your cover now?
Yes.
Sarah sank against Chuck with a small smile on her face. She sighed contentedly. While looking out at the water, out at the horizon, she asked: "So, Chuck, what do we do about all this? You, me, the Intersect, the CIA, Molly…Reno?"
Chuck circled her in his arms, cradling her gently. He did not answer for a while, and she just enjoyed his warmth against her back and neck.
"You know how I feel about all that, Sarah, because you know how I feel about you. I'm happy to wait for you to figure out how you feel about it all."
Sarah sat up and turned to Chuck so that he could see her eyes. "And you know how I feel about you, so you know how I feel about all that. I—no, we—may need to figure out how to make it out of the insane maze we are in, but I want out of it, and I want to be with you, and I think I would like us to have Molly."
Chuck brushed her hair from her face where the wind had left it. He looked into her eyes. "Then let's make our life, Sarah, our real life, happen. That's always been my real mission. " He looked suddenly bashful, but she smiled him past his bashfulness.
"It's my real mission too, Chuck. Let's head back to my apartment. I have some food there we can have for lunch. And maybe we can take one of those Tahoe naps."
Chuck's grin stretched from ear-to-ear.
Sarah leaned in to whisper a final comment: "After we've done something to earn it."
Chuck's eyes glazed over above his grin.
Jill was frustrated.
She had expected Chuck and Walker back at the apartment today and had hoped they would be there early. Her Fulcrum contacts had done their jobs. There was a trail, apparently hers, leading away from California into Arizona. That should have been enough to get them out of Castle. But where were they? Jill wanted to figure out two things before she took Chuck from Walker, took him for good.
One, where, exactly, was this Molly? Sarah's letter contained some specifics, but they did not add up to a location, except in the sense that probably somewhere in California was a location. Jill had used her CIA mole to find Ryker. She had taken time this morning to establish cloaked contact with him. But, although he was obviously eager to help, and eager to know who Jill was and how she was involved, it was clear he had no information that, added to Jill's, would pinpoint any location. She needed to get into Walker's apartment. Maybe the crucial missing piece would be in there.
Two, what, exactly, was the relationship between Chuck and Walker? Chuck had said nothing about her, but he was different from her Chuck, the Chuck at Stanford. Jill was willing to bet those changes were because of Walker. Chuck probably thought he was in love with her. But what about Walker herself? Bryce had told Jill that Walker was Chuck's handler and he was her asset. Boyfriend/girlfriend was their cover. Jill knew how things went between handlers and assets. She had seduced enough assets, handled enough assets, to know that sometimes the line between cover and reality got hard to discern.
She had seduced assets who turned out to be talented lovers, men who also gave her gifts chosen with discerning taste, and she had become…fond of some of them. She had become fond enough to make her time in their bed, and her reactions to their caresses, free of real faking.
Although it enraged her to imagine Chuck abed with that CIA slut, she had to accept that Walker had almost certainly seduced Chuck. Walker was beautiful, even if completely not Chuck's type. Chuck liked gamine brunettes. She, Jill, had set that standard for him. Why he would respond to that blond brute of an Amazon was past telling. Maybe he had just been lonely. After all, Jill had broken his heart. Maybe she could, at least should sympathize a little with his decision to sleep with Walker.
Well, if they ever got back to the apartment, maybe Jill would finally get answers to one or both of these questions. So much of spying was waiting. She grabbed the last saltine left from the box she found in the cupboard and she bit into it.
Stale, like all the others.